GERMINAL, a fuel performance code of the PLEIADES platform to simulate the in-pile behaviour of mixed oxide fuel pins for sodium-cooled fast reactors
Abstract
GERMINAL is a fuel performance code developed by the French Commission of Alternative and Atomic Energies (CEA) to simulate the in-pile behaviour of mixed oxide fuel pins for Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors. The code is continuously being improved.GERMINAL was initially designed to simulate the fuel pin behaviour of the PHENIX and SUPER-PHENIX reactors, which were built in France and have been in operation over the last decades. The GERMINAL models were then extended and improved to meet the needs of the design studies of ASTRID, a project of a technological Sodium Fast Reactor demonstrator in France. The goal of this article is to introduce the current modelling implemented in GERMINAL. The code is validated and the validation work is illustrated here by a selection of comparisons between calculations and measurements. Working perspectives for further modelling improvements are finally presented, through more mechanistic approaches sustained by three-dimensional computations or based on extended physical couplings.